Modern communications networks like the public Internet, non-public intranets or combinations thereof have greatly facilitated the exchange of information over both shorter and longer distances. The facilitated information exchange, however, necessitates an improved information management to cope with issues like lack of accessibility of information, sub-optimal speed of information retrieval, unnecessary duplication of processes and information, etc. It is obvious that due to the steadily increasing amount of information to be managed, the task of information management becomes increasingly laborious.
To facilitate the task of information management, numerous standard platforms have been developed. As an example for such a standard platform, Lotus Domino R5 distributed by Lotus/IBM Inc. can be mentioned. Despite the availability of such standard platforms, the existence of individual needs still requires complex considerations for example regarding network technologies and topologies, regarding the programming and interconnecting of network components and regarding the distribution of specific processing tasks among the individual network components.
Information to be processed by individual network components can relate to various aspects and usually the above considerations of a network technologist are independent from the specific nature of the processed information. However, there exist situations in which the nature of the processed information does influence technical aspects of the communications network and its components. In such a case it becomes essential that the technical environment including network topology, user interfaces, etc. is adapted to the specific type of information to ensure a proper, efficient and secure operation of the communications network. In this context information relating to tasks, processes or events that are associated with some kind of risk can be mentioned.
There is a need for a technical environment which allows an improved information management. More specifically, there is a need for appropriately configured network components and a method of controlling such network components which allow a fast, efficient and secure processing of information relating to tasks, processes or events that are associated with some kind of risk.